Slopestyle Elimination Results and Photos

January 24, 2009

Andreas Wiig. Photo: Chris Wellhausen

We woke up to fat flakes of snow falling. By the time we were done with breakfast and headed out the door it was lightly raining. When we got to mountain we couldn’t see the hill. It was shrouded in fog.

Pretty much perfect weather for slopestyle. Yeah right.

So the women went first. Their elimination runs ran from 10 to Noon. Then it was the men. And the conditions only got worse. The course floated in and out of the dense clouds. Snow fell wet and heavy and it was all anyone could do to get down the run safely.

But still, proving themselves true professionals a lot of the girls managed to put down some impressive runs.

Laughs.
Then one of the Snow Park Technologies builders walks into the tent.

“Gunny wanted everyone to know that we’re salting the lips.”
“Oh great now instead of knuckling, we’re gonna be going huge.”
“Yeah but that’s probably better than how it is right now,”
“Yeah that knuckle didn’t look like much fun, you got a lot of that knuckle.”
“Man I’m just at the point of the day, where I want to get it over with.”
“One more run and I can just go kick back on the couch.”
“That’ll be a relief.”
“I can’t tell you how stoked I was just to get through the rail section, but then I was like ah, well now I gotta deal with these jumps.”

So each dude waited his turn, then walked up to the start gate, strapped in, waiting again. 30 seconds. Course is clear. Okay, 10 seconds. Alright you’re good to go.

Then they’d drop, disappear into the mist, and try to make it to the bottom. At the bottom the crowd gathered watched the runs on the jumbo-tron, occasionally turning away when a rider went down, cheering for some more than others, and always erupting when Shaun stomped his tricks.

The last round of runs decided who’d advance and some heavies were unseated.
Here’s who made it into finals. Let’s hope the weather clears, ‘cuz other than that everyone’s set to go off.